Review:Business@The Speed Of Thought 116
Pass the Thorazine: A Review of "Business @ the Speed of Thought"
reviewed by Doc Technical"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it." - Groucho Marx
So Bill Gates has written a second book about the future of technology. It's called "Business @ the Speed of Thought", I'll call it B@TSOT for short. This is the most awaited media event since "Return of the Jedi". Oh wait. That's "The Phantom Menace". This is just another vacuous management technology book by a rich guy with nothing original to say. Sorry. My mistake.
First, in the interests of full disclosure, let me say that I didn't read the book, only the 23 chapter excerpts found at the www.microsoft.com web site. You might argue that you can't judge a book from its excerpts. My response is "Hey! You don't expect me to pay for this pap, do ya? I've got code to write!"
The thought of the number of trees that died an ignoble death just so an accidental billionaire could use an archaic technology to spread his ghostwritten pablum to the coffee tables of middle management boggles the mind.
One can almost hear the trees' psychic screams, "an O'Reilly book, a Jacqueline Susanne novel, but not THIS!"
So, if you want an in-depth review of all the details of the book, you'll have to look to someone with more fortitude than old Doc Technical.
The B@TSOT Web Site
Now, I know Mr. Gates didn't design the web site for his book, but the web splash page does provide an interesting service: it shows how to confuse a user.
It's not a visually unappealing page, I suppose, nice monochromatic scheme, pretty simple layout. A little box contains the words "click to enter", enticing me to delve deeper. I move to the box and click on the words.
And nothing happens.
I move the cursor around, looking for the little pointy-hand icon that indicates I'm over a link. I find a link over the book title and the author's name, but not over the words "click to enter".
Now that's good design.
The splash page takes me to - another splash page! So what was the first one for? At least page two has a few link options: site map, feedback, "getting @ solutions", "buying @ once", Terms of Use.
Hmmm. "Terms of Use" takes me to a lengthy license agreement that must have taken an army of lawyers months to boil down into legal tar. My favorite line:
"Microsoft reserves the right to terminate your access to any or all of the Communities at any time without notice for any reason whatsoever."
Ouch. I make sure I wipe my feet neatly on their digital doorstep, and wipe a speck of lint off my virtual shirt before entering the link "looking @ the book".
The web site has overviews and excerpts from all 23 chapters of "Business @ the Speed of Thought", including the Appendix and Glossary.
The Intended Audience
This book is aimed squarely at management, from CEOs down to middle managers. It's certainly not aimed at technical people used to reading concise, well-thought out material.
Your boss will read this book. Your boss's boss will read this book. They'll come to you in the days and weeks ahead, suggesting innovations they gleaned from this book. Innovations like... e-mail:
"Once in place, a digital nervous system is easy to build on. A good network, a good e-mail system, easy-to-build Web pages are everything you need for eliminating internal paper forms, too. You can add any number of intranet applications easily once this infrastructure is in place."
Welcome to the Future World of 1994. Mr. Gates has his fingers clutched firmly about the throat of the obvious.
This is the main problem I have with the book (well, the excerpts, at least). Gates prognosticates with all the insight of a sideshow palm reader. E-mail? Web pages?
Here's a good suggestion:
"Less developed countries may assume that a digital approach to government is out of reach, but countries without systems can start fresh with new systems, which will be less expensive than manual approaches."
Of course, if a developing nation is really short on cash, they could buy older, less powerful 486 and Pentium machines, and save a bundle in software costs by loading up Linux and open source software. I'm sure Bill was planning on getting around to saying that. He probably mentions it in the book, but it didn't make the excerpts.
Here's a prediction I found particularly ironic:
"We'll see a world in which fairly simple personal companion devices proliferate side by side with incredibly powerful general-purpose PCs that support knowledge work at home or the office. Life's going to be pretty exciting as these changes come about and within a decade it's likely that most of them will occur."
It's ironic because I read these words using AportisDoc on my PalmPilot from the webpages which I downloaded using a little perl script that I ran on my Linux box. George Jetson, eat your heart out. Doc is a radical bleeding-edge cyber-citizen. Envy him.
Gates on Privacy
Occasionally, we get an interesting text byte from the excerpts. Here's one that gave me pause:
"Many Web sites ask users for registration information, including name, address, demographic data and credit information. While this data enables businesses to offer better services and support for customers and do more targeted marketing, consumers should be able to approve in advance the use of any personal data and whether that data can be passed on to other entities."
One supposes that Mr. Gates wasn't aware of what his company has been doing lately on the privacy front. Of course those universal IDs that get embedded into OLE documents or transferred surreptitiously across the internet, well that's just for our own good. Trust Bill.
The Writing
Now Bill has gotten some flack from reviewers over his prose. What I'd say is that Gates' words had the uncanny ability to kick my brain into neutral every few sentences. Take this example:
"Among the challenges that data mining can help with are these: Predicting the likelihood of customers buying a specific item based on their ages, gender, demographics and other affinities. Identifying customers with similar browsing behaviors. Identifying specific customer preferences in order to provide improved individual service. Identifying the date and times involved in sequences of frequently visited web pages or frequent episodes of phone calling patterns. Finding all groups of items that are bought together with high frequency."
The prose in this book is almost impenetrable. Gates uses the english language like a blunt truncheon. Or maybe it's his ghostwriter. One must wonder whether the ghostwriter's going to put this little piece of detritus on his resume.
The Final Word
So, should you buy this book? I'll frame my answer this way: remember the scene in George Orwell's "1984" where the protagonist is confronted with his worst fear, rats, when his interrogators strap a cage to his face with hungry live rats separated from his flesh by a flimsy wire mesh gate?
I would rent the movie version of "1984" before I would buy B@TSOT.
Doc Technical is really a programmer who gets to work full time on Linux systems and get paid for it. Envy him. And he's still not a real doctor.
Review by: Jon Katz
There's an almost Orwellian quality to Bill Gates' new book Business@The Speed Of Thought, enormous stacks of which began appearing at chain bookstores last week, along with audio tapes and CD-Roms. Given Microsoft's much publicized troubles and challenges in recent months, the book seems especially timely.
Gates' beaming face is on the back cover of the book, over a publisher's note announcing that "Bill Gates has arranged for the author's share of the proceeds to be donated to charity." This note crystallizes what's so odd about Gates, whose outwardly genial, seer-like persona floats above his own life, that of his company, and most of the people who use computers, the Net or the Web.
Almost everything about this public persona is contradictory, if not hypocritical. He doesn't need the royalties, so why write a book at all? He could simply continue to give carefully orchestrated speeches and interviews to friendly reporters and audiences. Last week, his book was lovingly excerpted on the cover of Time Magazine (whose parent company Time Warner also owns Warner Books, Gates' publisher). Reading Gates brazen prescriptions for everybody else's digital future, it's almost possible to forget he's fighting for his own.
He uses the informal "Bill", yet is as stiff and elusive as any public figure in America.
He continuously puts himself forward as the embodiment of new thinking, yet at least so far, his authorship suggests he doesn't have many ideas at all, new or old.
He seems to cling to his public persona, but as the book makes clear, it's always on his own terms. We get no sense of his life, travails or real beliefs. This public Gates, the Millenial visionary so beloved by journalists and politicians and CEO's, seems to suggest an emotionless droid much more than a tough, dynamic business leader.
The theme of Gates' dry, ferociously detached book is his idea that the company of the future needs a digital nervous system to hire, communicate, operate and compete in the next century, that digital systems will replace their more cumbersome and expensive predecessors.
In fact, one of the very few graphics in the book sketches out this new system. At the heart is a box labeled "Digital Nervous System," and connected to it are other boxes, "Basic Operations," "Business reflexes," "Strategic Thinking" and "Customer Interaction."
For a book that presumes to guide commerce into the Millenium, Gates' ideas sound either obvious, or sometimes, even retro, more 50's than futuristic.
He sprinkles the book with self-serving anecdotes about how well-run Microsoft is, how employees are hired online, how they make their travel plans on the Net, how they avoid pointless meetings, how they use e-mail to collect and share information (the Justice Department has told us a lot more about Microsoft's e-mail than he does).
He advances the notion of the paperless office, not a new idea, and repeatedly calls for an integrated digital infrastructure companies for companies.
His ideas about creating the virtual corporation are cold and uninspiring. The book has the feel of one of those nightmare inspirational management seminars - "manage with the force of facts," is one of his shibboleths. This style invokes a Holiday Inn conference room where the captive sales force is held against its will while some motivational speaker holds forth cheerfully and interminably with graphs and charts.
Gates dispenses nearly 500 pages of digital wisdom without ever once mentioning the remarkable challenges, dramas and successes of his own company. Whether you're a friend or foe, hardly anybody would disagree with the idea that the company Gates built is at a crossroads, under pressure from everything from the federal government to IBM and Apple to Linux.
But the public Gates is like a disconnected head, floating above us like some videotaped image, relentless, bland and remote. Page by page, he seems less interesting, the book painfully tiresome and slow.
It seems almost incomprehensible that this is the man who built the most successful corporation on the planet today. How could he have done it, thinking like this? And if he is interesting and smart, why is he going to such extraordinary lengths to hide it from us? What is he missing? What are we?
For more than a decade, Gates has towered over the Digital Age, a symbol to much of America and the world of the wealth, brains and stunning growth of the computing culture. Now, as many are questioning whether Microsoft will survive into the Millenium in its current form, he writes a book that doesn't even glancingly refer to the reality of his company's life. Or his own.
Is if fun being Bill Gates? Painful? Is he angry about the government's challenge to his company? Is he bothered by Linux, open source or free software? Does he notice all those geek attacks? Does he like living in his digital castle, with all Leonardo Da Vinci and Napoleon's private stuff? Does he really wear computer chips to alter the climate and artwork of his house as he moves room to room?
The standards of the digital revolution, writes Gates - the PC, the microprocessor that will make other new digital devices possible, and the Internet - all give companies a way of implementing a "unified architecture without busting the bank."
The next steps, he adds, "are to connect these knowledge systems with existing business operations, to build new business systems on the new architecture, and, over time, to replace older business systems."
The interesting thing about these words - in fact, the only interesting thing about them - is that they end the book, usually the last chance for an author to make a final statement, leave an enduring vision.
Like him or not, Gates' ought to be one of the people in America we most want to read about. That there isn't a revealing, honest or compelling line in "Business" tells us more about him than anything he writes.
After all these pages, all those covers, all those interviews, perhaps it's finally time to take Bill Gates at his own word, and acknowledge the very remarkable fact that one of the most extraordinary companies in the history of business was built by an empty vessel, a disconnected, emotionless void at the right place in the right time with the right idea.
The paranoia, envy and anger swirling around Bill Gates and his company are all misplaced and misguided. Nobody has to break Microsoft up. It is, like him, is an illusion, the evocation of an idea rather than an idea itself.
For that comprehension alone, Businesss@The Speed Of Thought was worth the reading. But it's a sad book, after all. This is a nerd in massive denial, unwilling or unable to connect with the most compelling parts of his own life.
You can e-mail me at jonkatz@slashdot.org
And if you're a mascocist, you can purchase this book at Amazon.
Gates' Thoughts Behind His Book (Score:1)
There is absolutely nothing interesting about the drivel written in that book. The only thing that might have made it interesting would have been personal anecdotes, and real thoughts on current issues. Instead Gates choose to ignore everything that has happened to Microsoft and himself recently and just spouted a bunch of obvious statements with no real meaning.
At least he's not trying to make money off this crap.
Like everything else about Microsoft... (Score:1)
Of course 'Bill' or whoever wrote his book for him doesn't mention Linux or Apple or DOJ or any of the other myriad of challenges out there. If it did, it would be acknowledging them in a way to call them to the attention of the mass media. Which is the only reason why Windows is more popular then Linux, aside from ease of use (which is an arguement that don't work with Apple, point taken.)
All this book is is a collection of buzzwords and concepts that overzealous middle managers can use to make themselves feel smart.
Its not a book, its an ad. Gates got rich off marketing, and this book just proves it: a massive advertisement for his company. I pity the people who would buy it, but I hope they gain something from the study of a book that would have truly been visionary... maybe 10 years ago.
Copyright violation (Score:1)
At least that was my understanding of the law... but then again, parody used to be protected free speech.
(Not an AC, just on Lynx.
Craig Maloney
craig@ic.net
Helping YOU out (Score:1)
MS is on trial for anti-competitive practices. If found guilty, MS may be subject to ANY NUMBER of restriction or restructuring decrees.
Not to mention that 19 states are also after MS.
And Caldera
And a number of other suits are pending.
Many of which will be bolstered by the judge finding MS IS as MONOPOLY.
Given all of this, why would you suspect that Bill ISN'T aware of the trial? Or that he ISN'T worried about the outcome? Or that it ISN'T a personal challenge?
Get a clue. Anything that was written about the lawsuit would be outdated by the time the book saw publication. I would expect YOU (a published "author") to understand this.
Furthermore, any book based upon MS's standing today would be a joke next year.
So Bill "writes" about generalities and methods of doing business and leaves out ANY applicable material because there isn't any to be had.
MS is a monopoly that uses anti-competitive practices to maintain their growth rate and bolster their stock.
How is that going to make it into a business book by the CEO (or whatever) of the company?
You need to do basic research (again). MS isn't at a crossroads (at least, not a new crossroad). Remember Apple? Remember OS/2? Remember the Internet? This is called "competition".
Personally, I don't care about Bill's private life. Does he take his daughter on pony rides? Does he have sex 2.4 times a week? What's his favorite breakfast? Who cares?
His personal revelations wouldn't help run a business because his business is based upon illegal activities and those are not going to make it into a book published by the CEO.
Is that clear enough for you?
Copyright violation (Score:1)
Gates and cluelessness (Score:1)
Why all this MS bashing? Rated "0", Why? (Score:1)
I do not necessarily agree with the total statement, particularly the later sentences - but it has an important view that exceeds some I have seen with "2" or "3" rankings.
I may be forced to set my level at -1, which from some previous posts I have read will turn my stomach. We need moderation to cull the garbage - not just to avoid opinions we disagree with.
Like everything else about Microsoft... (Score:1)
I think the former post has a point here.
And besides, all the fuzz about Bill himself will not hurt him.
Furthermore my sympathy goes to the man who made DOS- the one form which Bill bought it-
first he sees that Bill gets rich of it.
second when he's over that issue he's the fun of the whole linux society, cause he would have made a junk OS. tragedy....
Temper, temper (Score:1)
Don't take the bait, Jon.
Anyway, I think the criticism has some merit.
Your review spent lotsa 'graphs criticizing
Gates the person, and not his book. (Just
look at the introduction--it's mostly focused
on Gates' media image.)
Myself, I stopped reading your review after
so many graphs slamming Gates, and not his book.
-----------------------------
Computers are useless. They can only give answers.
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:1)
Yes, if a book stinks, the review should say so, however, I've read my share of book reviews, and not once have I seen the reviewers go into a personal attack on the author...
If he can't write, say so... If he can't manage a company, say that too... But don't write a "review" of his book just so you can justify unleashing an onslaught of insults... It's not professional, and the only ppl you impress are the little 14 year old hacker wannabes who run linux to be 'l33t', and the anti-ms population of the net... (arguably the main demographic of visitors to this site...)
Re: (Score:1)
Many Web sites are just asking for it (Score:1)
Either that or I'll just compile a list of places that ask me for my email address and pound them with a bot for a week.
I can't think of a better way to get the point across ("look, if I wanted your junk mail I would have said so!") than to let them deal with their own. Zones.com will probably be first to go...
Gates and cluelessness (Score:1)
Would you care to elaborate? Google [google.com] didn't turn up anything likely-looking....
--
W.A.S.T.E.
Cute (Score:1)
www.auto-identity.net ? (Score:1)
Zingvee Byewhiler
The reason the paperless office is so far off (Score:1)
And that's just on the desktop. What manager in her right mind would trust a business plan to, say, MS IIS? Talk about nonscalable --- the moment your business becomes well-known enough to be posted about on Slashdot, you crash and burn. Gates wants businesses to make email an element of their "digital nervous systems" --- but Microsoft's email programs, both client and server, vary from the schizophrenic to the epileptic to the catatonic. Some nervous system.
Given how much damage MS has done to the state of the art, it is the height of irony for Gates to call for the economy to become yet more dependent on information technology. It is an invitation to disaster.
Not reading?? (Score:1)
What a pointless review.
And Katz wasn't much better. Who in hell would care about Bill's personal life in a management book? I don't understand where you're coming from on this Jon - help me out?
Matt - who's sticking to O'Reilly books.
Why all this MS bashing? Rated "0", Why? (Score:1)
"Fair use" (Score:1)
Don't become what you despise (Score:1)
People who spend their time bashing or predicting Microsoft's demise (or that of any other stagnating company) should be aware that they are circling a target that is no longer moving -- and thus stop moving themselves. It is an inviting and juicy piece of bait, but it is bait in a trap nonetheless.
Instead, we as individuals should focus on the new technology and culture. Be positive. Contribute. Ignore Microsoft and Gates and the culture of control and stagnation. Look forward. As Andretti Sr. is rumored to have said "What issa behind you does no matter."
The paperless office (Score:1)
That was the one with the three shells wasn't it?
:-)
Robert
Mr. Standard Staples, meet Po of the Teletubbies!! (Score:1)
===
Old Fart!!! Of tha SENIOR DADS!!!!!
Gates and cluelessness (Score:1)
Well, I never!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)
===
Old Fart!!! Of tha SENIOR DADS!!!!!
You had to read it? (Score:1)
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:1)
Besides, it's not just the software quality, it's the business practices.
Gates and cluelessness (Score:1)
Take a look at amazon.com customer reviews (Score:1)
God, I love the internet because of stuff like this. Finally, people can at least fight the insulting drivel that has been handed to them by advertising and marketing droids. It's funny that these people have been pushing this crap through a one-way medium for so long they have no idea what to do when they meet with responses.
Now let's all go write some reviews ... :-)
The reason the paperless office is so far off (Score:1)
A slightly darker angle to this is that people who are not contributing any value to an organisation (and we all know people like that, now don't we?) feel that by surrounding themselves by paper, there is a quantifiable display that they are being productive and that they should keep their jobs.
Why all this MS bashing? Rated "0", Why? (Score:1)
If it makes you feel any better, it's been bumped up to 2 in the last hour or so.
Re: Gates' inner life (Score:1)
This is where a bit of insight on B.G.'s part is really essential. He could have given the book a much more personal touch; filled it with personal anecdotes, analyses of situations at MS past and present and what he actually thinks and feels about those events. The word 'character' springs to mind, and if there's one thing I think this book probably proves, it's how characterless our Mr Gates really is (as if we all didn't know already...).
Instead of all this we're presented with this purported managerial panacea which amounts to little more than a todo list. And it's a list any manager could ask his engineers for any day of the week (and for a good few less $$ as well).
Gates is no Vannevar Bush (Score:1)
I've no idea if Vannevar Bush said that, but to paraphrase another poster "no one is perfect." More to the point, Bush didn't see through to the ultimate connection between the digital computer (remember, this was only 1945!) and his vision of the Memex. That fact doesn't detract from the value of his original insights.
Gates is no Vannevar Bush (Score:1)
On the other hand, Bill Gates can only dream of being a technology visionary. The most important quality of such a tech visionary is not the foresight of new technology. Bush's ideas on the implementation of the Memex device are quaint by today's standards, to say the least. Yet his view of the problem and its solution persists. On this basis, I would suggest that the principal quality of the visionary is the ability to clearly isolate important problems.
It is on this last point that I see Gates' greatest failing as visionary. His problems are simply not that profound, which makes his solutions necessarily lackluster. Furthermore, the management figures who read Gates' book should also read RISKS-related writings to temper their image of a rosy digital future.
As a parting shot, I am sorely disappointed in the quality of these two reviews. Would a review of The Artists' Guide to the Gimp have flown that freely admitted to never having read the book?
Partway there. Try LPWA. (Score:1)
A poster calling him/herself alternately "Tom Bannon" and "Zingvee Byewhiler" asked:
Well, as a "technological demonstration", you can generate username, password, and revokable e-mail address. I.e., "your" e-mail address is based partly on the site you're visiting, so if some scumbag uses it, you need never go there again OR can generate another new identity.
Doesn't auto-generate random age, locality, or occupation though.
Does strip out HTTP_REFERER (what link brought you here) and details of your OS.
Check it out at: http://lpwa.com/ [lpwa.com].
(Score:1)
Free Use (Score:1)
Banned on Slashdot (Score:1)
Gates and his inner life (Score:1)
I find it disturbing, reading the book, that there was no candor or reality of any sort. I'm sorry you find that bizarre, but it's just my opinion. Course, maybe that is bizarre.
Helping you out (Score:1)
Gates and cluelessness (Score:1)
---------
The Paper Virus (Score:1)
Both of these reviewers seem to have been infected: none of their ideas are new or exciting or even insightful. Is the book in fact a literature virus?
If so, what are these two reviewers now going to use as a virus scanner? Terry Pratchett novels?
Re: (Score:1)
Many Web sites ask users for registration (Score:1)
for that matter, most of my registrations are full of crap too, with throwaway email addresses (not a new one every time though, just a generic one that I can take out of /etc/aliases if it starts getting too much spam), and my country of origin has so far switched from Burma to Iceland, through Switzerland, Andorra, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
Mr. Katz seems confused... (Score:1)
Mr. Katz this book was about business, not about Bill's personal life as quotes like this would appear you think it is:
"Is if fun being Bill Gates? Painful? Is he angry about the government's challenge to his company? Is he bothered by Linux, open source or free software? Does he notice all those geek attacks? Does he like living in his digital castle, with all Leonardo Da Vinci and Napoleon's private stuff? Does he really wear computer chips to alter the climate and artwork of his house as he moves room to room?"
This isn't Bill's biography or autobiography its a business theory and strategy book (or lack thereof). It has nothing to do with the current problems of his company or any he may be having outside of it. I think that you apparently want to transitition Bills personal life and problems which you know NOTHING or very little about onto a book he wrote. It's a stretch and it shows what I have seen as a steady decline in the quality of the information posted on SlashDot. Articles and reviews like this and simply bashing anything that is NOT Linux is one of the reasons I find myself reading Slashdot less and less...
"Fair use" (Score:1)
Copyright violation (Score:1)
He commented only on the parts that he read. (Score:1)
There were substantial portions of the book available on the web. He took care to address only these portions, supporting his opinions with quotations. This will cause some bias from his source sample being incomplete, but IMO the review was still useful.
You can identify customer patterns with anonymity. (Score:1)
They don't know what you, personally, need, but they don't have to. The kind of data mining mentioned builds up information about what various types of "average users" need. Regardless of whether or not this corresponds to actual people, it does contribute usefully to marketing by letting them target their sales pitches more effectively to the statistical whole.
I worked on a similar software project a few years ago. It would have been able to do this quite effectively, but we ran out of development money.
Oh, did I mention the personal privacy:
"Identifying the date and times involved in sequences of frequently visited web pages or frequent episodes of phone calling patterns. Finding all groups of items that are bought together with high frequency."
Be careful - the "big brother" is watching you. Did you notice the frequent use of Identifying. I have an idea: how about a personal ID card with all personal info can be found. Seems pretty exciting.
You don't need to know who the users are; just what they do. As far as a statistician is concerned, you beam in, look at a few things, and beam out again. They don't need to know anything more to adjust their advertising and list of offered services.
This doesn't mean that they wouldn't _like_ to know more. If marketing could, for instance, get your mailing address they'd be happy to spam you with targeted junk mail. However, that's a secondary issue. The statistical techniques mentioned above can be applied to anonymous accesses.
Why I use paper. (Score:1)
I'm afraid I have to disagree with this. I'm 23, and most of my work logs and notes are on paper. Paper has a very convenient, powerful, and user-friendly interface, is non-volatile, and if stored properly has a very long mean time before failure.
You can't embed hyperlinks in paper or run a search engine on it, but it is very good for the things that I use it for (mainly quick reference and archiving).
This is why I think that it will be a long time before paper disappears, if it ever will.
This issue is amusing from all sides of the fence. (Score:1)
This is really very funny. As a user, I find the picture of spammers trying to grapple with this kind of data hilarious - but as a person who has worked on similar data mining before, I find it interesting and amusing that it affects the results not one bit. It just hurts the spammers ("LART that pinhead!")
The statistical techniques that Gates alludes to look at average access patterns by various types of user, inferring the user types from the access patterns themselves. All they need in order to work is a tag that lets them track whichever user just started browsing. They don't need to know who the person behind the terminal is; just which hits come from which nameless user. This can be done by checking IP numbers or by handing out cookies, and generates useful statistical data.
Marketing, OTOH, gets some very creative contact information. I wonder how many times the canonical North Pole address has turned up?
Different Chores for Different Folks (Score:1)
The society that has harbored the entire Linux upheaval as we know it isn't your typical corporate melodrama. Anybody with a few braincells left after a long weekend can see this. So likewise, don't expect Slashdot to remain in a strict corporate setting.
Digital Nervous system (Score:1)
The main idea of the book (Score:1)
Of course, that doesn't mean it isn't a rotten book, but when the word "Business" is in the title, expect a bunch of stuff about money.
Gates is no Vannevar Bush (Score:1)
In retrospective, impossibilities aside, the world might be a little better if we had listened to him and HAD left if out of our thinking.
Gates' inner life (Score:1)
of the book, right there along beside "How to do
Business like the Japanese". Jon Katz's review
was bizarre, Gates' inner life is not the issue
here (in fact it is quite refreshing that unlike
Tony Blair or Bill Clinton, business leaders tend
to fairly tight lipped about their private lives),
we should be interested in how the development
of technology will effect the economy, whether
Gates likes being rich is irrelevant and boring
Re: No Katz (Score:1)
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Many Web sites ask users for registration (Score:1)
cypherpunks/cypherpunks
It's everywhere you want to be.
Cyberfox!
Bill's autistic - explains a lot (Score:1)
Gates is no Vannevar Bush (Score:1)
Paperless toilets (was: The paperless office) (Score:1)
Bill vs. Linus as writers... (Score:1)
Bill (or his ghostwriter) wrote a book about business management aimed at CEO's and non-techies while not touching on any real Microsoft issues (ok, he did contradict his own testimony :) It could have been a less funny Scott Adams book from what I've heard about it.
Linus in his chapter in "Open Sources" - excerpted on slashdot a while ago - wrote about kernel management issues, conveying a sense of where he felt the Linux kernel was going, and how it evolved to where it is now (2.2) while commenting on some of the software world around him.
Just food for thought. :)
Reviews without reading? (Score:1)
As for the issue at hand, I think we are seeing Bill's egomania really shine through. Everyone in the media and out of the know always refers to him as some sort of genius. He is a billionaire and only geniuses are that rich... He can't resist the chance to write a book pretending he knows the future. Much more of this and he won't be the "genius" he's gonna be a Rockerfeller or a JP Morgan type in public perception.
Gates' Thoughts Behind His Book (Score:1)
- Author gives management truism
- Author tells story, usually from their own life, to illustrate truism
Some of the ideas presented in these books may be at odds with what the reader believes. The reader needs to be convinced, especially when the old way works just fine. As an extreme example, why should a CEO instruct his employees to use email when paper memos work just fine?Gates is trying to impart his philosophy on business to the business world. He needs to give real world examples of how this philosophy made his company what it is today. Without these examples, B@TSOL becomes nothing more then a lose collection of quotes that Gates and his ghostwriter culled from 30 years of Popular Science.
Mr. Katz seems confused... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Hey, Dvorak! (it was a joke) (Score:1)
Paperless toilets (was: The paperless office) (Score:1)
I tended to wait a little before informing my girlfriends, however.
adum
management (Score:1)
'nuff said.
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:1)
I guess you're right, because if the majority of the computer-using population intends to be stupid, (take a look at the Students suing their college [slashdot.org] article) MS is exactly what they need. For whoever knows better, there'll always be alternatives. I think people just need to calm down about 'impending disaster' coming from every direction (free software license wars, internic/nsi crap, etc). Nothing is going to disappear anytime soon.
Re: Jon Katz (Score:1)
-jG
Banned on Slashdot (Score:1)
>LAMB: W--let me ask the obvious question: Why is Bill Bennett an opportunist and you're not?
Mr. KATZ: Well, he's made a lot more money than I have, basically. Whe--if I get to the point where I've sold as many books as he has, we'll be equal.
If you thought his book was bad (Score:1)
Shame really, as John Snow is normally a really good interviewer. But he obviously didn't have a clue what he was asking Gates about.
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:1)
Just because the book is written by Bill G. and stinks, saying so is 'MS bashing'?
Most reviews I've read (many by non-computer folks) agree that this book is not worth the time and effort to read. If that's 'MS bashing' then so be it.
Food for thought (Score:1)
Not a fair shot, I guess. Corporate execs tend to be figureheads. Anybody remember the IBM exec who was cornered and didn't know how to use a floppy disk?
Many Web sites ask users for registration (Score:1)
Hey, Dvorak! (Score:1)
Misunderstood? No (Score:1)
I was just wondering for my own general education.
You know... learning the culture...
What is your oppinion? (Score:1)
I was wondering how apropriate is it to not allow people use our website after sertain amount of accesses unless we have their contact info.
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:2)
Many people are disgusted by this anti-MS attitude. Not because they think MS is good, but because it's better to do constructive things than to do MS-bashing.
I think Slashdot would be a much better place without making a fool out of Microsoft. They're good enough at it themselves. The only thing slashdot achieves with all this MS bashing is looking like a bigger idiot than Microsoft (well... almost).
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:2)
Uhm... you've neglected something tho... part of life is having FUN. I enjoy poking fun at life's stupid little (or big) quirks. I think there's alot of other people out there that would agree.
I'm not necisarily condoning doing things like this in every little instance... but Doc did make many good points through the humor. It was also alot more enjoyable to read because of it.
"I didn't read it but it sucks" (Score:2)
Data Mining (Score:2)
Bill sounds like he's got the data mining bug. I've worked with others with the same affliction, even in a startup doing this miraculous cross-tabulation of everyone's buying patterns.
The problem Bill doesn't realize is that data mining is fundamentally wrong. People buy goods in independent units they call products. Products are generally defined in ways which make them maximally flexible, so that they can be used with as wide a variety as possible of other products. This independence is a large part of what makes supply and demand work.
When, with heavy cross-marketing, it becomes impossible to buy a product without getting another product thrown in (or discounted, etc.), the result isn't "Business at the Speed of Thought", it's a blurring of the boundaries that keep markets efficient. The economy becomes less transparent, not better. If you can't buy a pound of sugar without getting flour mixed in, because "90% of people buy flour and sugar together", you're screwed.
Bill's mind is apparently immune to these contradictions, as anyone who has followed the MS antitrust trial knows. MS's approach has been to centralize the market as much as possible, decreasing the product choices that people have. Some consolidation is justified, for technical reasons, but it's a trap to think that linking everything to everything will somehow allow companies to outsmart the marketplace.
Whatever (Score:2)
His disliked the book because Gates not only didn't offer any technical points, it failed to provide any insight on how Gates made Microsoft into what it is today. One would expect a book written by the "most successful" buisnessman of today to contain some glimpse into how he did it. Alas, much as "the road ahead" failed miserably as a technical piece -- B@TSOT fails to deliver on the other front. That you pushed it off as "Gates bashing" is quite interesting...
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
First good, second wrong writing for review (Score:2)
I tend to get somewhat frustrated by most of his writing, although there's sometimes enough merit to make it worth reading. However, from what I've seen of this review and his other works, Katz tends to take a very philosophically oriented, analytical approach. Although this actually works fairly well for analyzing a novel or prose, I believe the purpose of a book review should remain closer to the surface, paraphrasing the ideology and commenting on the writing style of the author rather than dealing with his personal motivation for writing. The latter style is instead appropriate for an author's own clarification (such as Katz himself) of the motivation behind his own works, or in a college paper using this more in-depth analysis, such as a college paper assessing the moral qualities in Viennese architecture (for a random example).
On the flip side, yes, Doc Technical admits that he didn't read the entire book, so those of you who complain on that front probably have a point. But on the other hand, he presents a fair number of excerpts which even the publishers consider to be indicative of the essence of Gates' book, which seem to paraphrase the (inadequacy and) "concepts" Gates is trying to present in this second novel.
He was definitely sarcastic, and yes, it's another M$ bashing review, but frankly, this book
Happy Slashdotting,
--Anneke
Data Mining can be useful. (Score:2)
This depends on what you do with the data that you get. Mixing flour and sugar because people usually buy both is silly, but putting the flour next to the sugar on the shelves isn't.
I worked with a similar data mining endeavor in the past. Our goal was to figure out what banner ads the user might actually find interesting. As long as the application of the results is kept within the bounds of sanity, data mining can actually produce valid results.
I know that if a banner ad on cheap alpha boxes showed up, I might actually click on it.
Re: anudder cheap shot at Katz (Score:2)
>Gates dispenses nearly 500 pages of digital wisdom without ever once
>mentioning the remarkable challenges, dramas and successes of his own
>company. Whether you're a friend or foe, hardly anybody would disagree
>with the idea that the company Gates built is at a crossroads, under
>pressure from everything from the federal government to IBM
>and Apple to Linux.
If Gates has so much wisdom to dispense about business, where the hell did he get it? Presumably from Microsoft -- but Microsoft is curiously absent from this book, which seems to be full of generalities, truisms, the obsolete and the obvious.
I don't know why Warren Buffett seems to get along with him so well. Buffett is as transparent as they come; Gates is as translucent as tar.
Clue? (Score:2)
I haven't read the Seven Minute Manager, but the One Minute Manager was a parable and as such I wouldn't expect it to have anything about the authors.
Helping YOU out (Score:2)
The guy isn't suggesting billg reveal how many times a week he has sex. What he *is* saying is how about citing some personal examples about how xyz was applied (personally, in MS, by some other). He is saying the personal touch is lacking, that it is not an appealing read because it is bland and tepid, unenthralling and without a semblance of life and realism.
Temper, temper (Score:2)
I don't see what some peoples' problem is with talking about Bill Gates in a candid way. This review was well thought out, and makes several good points about the book.
True, if you look at just the form of the review, a good majority of the paragraphs start with "Gates.." or "He..," but for good reason. The book is about HIS vision. You can't seperate the man from the book. This is his book about his ideas, and if the ideas just aren't there, then where is the man?
If you stopped nitpicking, and actually read the review through, you'd notice that Mr. Katz makes several good points. True enough, there is some Gates-bashing, if you want to call it that. But you have to say something about the man who wrote the book. Especially if this is his vision..
Heaven forbid you want Mr. Katz to write a review that mimicks the review in Time.
Just my $0.02.
Fork
Paperless Irony. (Score:2)
I know I waste more paper printing "backup" copies of my documents than any paper forms I fill out; I've lost too many documents to system instability and file corruption than I care to remember.
Thank goodness there's a Windoze version of Vim [vim.org] and plenty of Linux workstations I can telnet into for any coding endeavours...
Copyright violation (Score:2)
Gates and cluelessness (Score:2)
Someday you'll all be one of us.
Why all this MS bashing? (Score:2)
- "Concentrate on the good things, then bad things will disappear by themselves."
You've been chained up in the lab too long. Let's look at some real world, present day examples of why this philosophy makes no sense:
Yugoslavia and Uganda: do you think the victems of genecide need to simply concentrate on good things?
On our own turf Pacific Bell has offered some of the crappiest service immaginable, yet continues to expand into markets it doesn't understand. Should we concentrate on how awesome high bandwith access at home will be when PacBell finally figures out install a DSL splitter without burning down your house (or is %20 of the time for those unfortunate enough to get DSL service from PacBell), or should we slam them, make noise, raise public awareness and disapproval and direct people to alternatives (such as the Covad partners)?
Microsoft is Crap. Let the world know.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Many Web sites ask users for registration (Score:3)
Hey, Bill, you mean we're supposed to to like, tell the truth when we register on websites?
I feel sorry for anyone trying to build up marketing information based on the crap I type in. Poor old Bob Flemming, born 7/6/1914, resident of, variously, Falkland Islands, Peru, Islands Of St Kitts And St Nevis, Estonia and (today's favourite) Serbia, who has worked for the Defence, Finance, Childcare and (this is the best one) Water Treatment industries. Bob must have a hell of a time dealing with all that junk mail I've signed him up for.
As for spam, I just create a new, unique, disposable email account for every registration. In fact it's quite fun spotting where spammers have got their addresses from.
FFS, if personal privacy worries you, Bill, don't type anything personal in- make it up!
Has anyone done a study on the reliability of website registration data? I think they're in for a disapointment.
By the way, Bill, you can stop sending TechNet update emails to microsoftjunk@cimmerii.demon.co.uk now...
>Many Web sites ask users for registration
>information, including name, address,
>demographic data and credit information.
>While this data enables businesses to offer
>better services and support for customers and
>do more targeted marketing,
the real truth about Microsoft (Score:3)
No one is passionate about Microsoft. Bill Gates is just freigtened that his reign might one day end. No one feels great allegience to any of his products. No one is thrilled about IIS or Exchange. No one lives or dies by Expedia, or WinCE, or IE or media player.
But, people live and die by the Linux kernel, their distro, any of the BSDs, there favorite UNIX. People literally live and die over KDE and GNOME. And that's good. That's why we're different. We have a passion with what we do, not just a fleeting whimsical notion that this stuff is nifty.
The reason that Gate's writing is so bland is because he has nothing new to talk about. The only thing to be done now is to design, to code, to build that future of networked devices, of improved user interfaces, or enhanced electronic services. There's no need to talk or to write or to type anymore, just more code to written, more chips to model, and more designs to be made.
Andrew Gardner
The paperless office (Score:3)
Our ex network admin at work has an interesting saying:
"The paperless office will become a reality soon after the paperless toilet."
-Jeremy
Mr. Katz seems confused... (Score:3)
Mr. Katz this book was about business, not about Bill's personal life as quotes like this would appear you think it is:
"Is if fun being Bill Gates? Painful? Is he angry about the government's challenge to his company? Is he bothered by Linux, open source or free software? Does he notice all those geek attacks? Does he like living in his digital castle, with all Leonardo Da Vinci and Napoleon's private stuff? Does he really wear computer chips to alter the climate and artwork of his house as he moves room to room?"
This isn't Bill's biography or autobiography its a business theory and strategy book (or lack thereof). It has nothing to do with the current problems of his company or any he may be having outside of it. I think that you apparently want to draw relations between Bills personal life and problems which you know NOTHING or very little about onto a book he wrote. It's a stretch and it shows what I have seen as a steady decline in the quality of the information posted on SlashDot. Articles and reviews like this and simply bashing anything that is NOT Linux is one of the reasons I find myself reading Slashdot less and less...
The main idea of the book (Score:3)
"Among the challenges that data mining can help with are these: Predicting the likelihood of customers buying a specific item based on their ages, gender, demographics and other affinities. Identifying customers with similar browsing behaviors. Identifying specific customer preferences in order to provide improved individual service."
Money, money, and money. Sell, sell, sell... and make more money so you can make even more money... hmm It amuses me when salespeople think they know what I want or need.
Oh, did I mention the personal privacy:
"Identifying the date and times involved in sequences of frequently visited web pages or frequent episodes of phone calling patterns. Finding all groups of items that are bought together with high frequency."
Be careful - the "big brother" is watching you. Did you notice the frequent use of Identifying . I have an idea: how about a personal ID card with all personal info can be found. Seems pretty exciting.